Utah beach still producing finds

[harry211]

Hi

The belt buckle will pretty much be left as it is, maybe a quick dip in mild rust remover then some ren wax put on to protect it from further decay. Mortar round wil get a bit more of a going over I think as it is more robust. Probably a dip in hydrochloric acid to remove worst of the corrosion, and to see if any markings remain, and again cover with ren wax to preserve.With these items, I don't like to restore, rather stabilise and conserve. They are battlefield relics afterall and would lose much if they were over restored.

[WW2Hunter]

If restored and put in a nice display, you can give it a second life, or you can give it a second life as a original relic and preserve it as it was(try transparant epoxy after a mild clean-up). Love those Normandie relic's, when I was a kid we found a lot of them just laying around in the woods and fields, my Step-mothers farmhouse was a real Walhalla.
I will soon return to "mein liebe Normandie" this spring and continue my digging on that Brittish mortar position I found.

Grtz Steven

[crazy horse]

Hi

The belt buckle will pretty much be left as it is, maybe a quick dip in mild rust remover then some ren wax put on to protect it from further decay. Mortar round wil get a bit more of a going over I think as it is more robust. Probably a dip in hydrochloric acid to remove worst of the corrosion, and to see if any markings remain, and again cover with ren wax to preserve.With these items, I don't like to restore, rather stabilise and conserve. They are battlefield relics afterall and would lose much if they were over restored.

yeah I can see why you wouldn't want to mess with them much considering where you got them. Normandy was probably one of the more historical battles, same as Stalingrad & quite a few others. I found a great store while I was going through my email, but it's in the U.S. they have a huge selection of rust removers, inhibitors, etc they even have a concrete rust remover & any type metal and other surfaces . pm me if you want their phone # it's toll free. no I am not involved with them or anything I am going to call later myself & see what all they have. I agree with you on Renwax that stuff is great, they have a great rust killer too. I like it because you can use your bare hands to rub the rust off. but that store I was telling you about have some rust inhibitor strips that you can put in a sealed container with your items, sounds almost too good to be true. anyway you have made some great finds . I am jealus because living here I am not close to any ww2 battle fields, except I was stationed at pearl harbor for 3 years. we found a crashed ZERO up on a mountain there, but it was completely stripped.
regards Marty

[AURktman]

With regards to the .45 ACP rounds, the bullet can get jammed back in the case if you do not rack the slide properly and it does not feed. What happens is that the case "stovepipes" slightly. In the heat of battle, the soldier probably tried to re-chamber the round by racking the slide again and causing it to slam into the barrel hood or the feed lip of the barrel. Although I have not been in the heat of battle, I have done that that very thing before.

Another possibility is that the soldier had a broken extractor and tried to rack a round with a case still in the chamber. It seems as though he possibly tried to chamber rounds before figuring out that he had a broken extractor.

[StuG III]

I owned a .45 at one stage as a carry piece. Every morning I would chamber a round and at days end would remove the cartridge and replace into the mag. After doing this a few times using the same cartridge, I found that the bullet was being pushed back into the shell. A noticeable distance in relation to an unchambered round. Just thought I'd share that fact.
Tom

[mad_ideas]

yeah I can see why you wouldn't want to mess with them much considering where you got them. Normandy was probably one of the more historical battles, same as Stalingrad & quite a few others. I found a great store while I was going through my email, but it's in the U.S. they have a huge selection of rust removers, inhibitors, etc they even have a concrete rust remover & any type metal and other surfaces . pm me if you want their phone # it's toll free. no I am not involved with them or anything I am going to call later myself & see what all they have. I agree with you on Renwax that stuff is great, they have a great rust killer too. I like it because you can use your bare hands to rub the rust off. but that store I was telling you about have some rust inhibitor strips that you can put in a sealed container with your items, sounds almost too good to be true. anyway you have made some great finds . I am jealus because living here I am not close to any ww2 battle fields, except I was stationed at pearl harbor for 3 years. we found a crashed ZERO up on a mountain there, but it was completely stripped.
regards Marty

any pics of the zero??
regards Sam

[pretvacant]

You are right about metal detecting being illegal on Utah beach. The mayor of Ste Marie du Mont (the commune which covers the beach area)had a sign erected a while ago to ban it. I think its mainly due to the owners of the Utah beach museum who seem to get stroppy.
Did you see all the building works going on? They have pulled a lot of kit out which will no doubt end up on display when they reopen.
You will often find ration tins coming out the dunes, some with paint on and contents! We found a German mess tin a while ago on the beach itself, where there was a POW compound.
If you are over again sometime give us a shout. The belt buckle is a nice find.
Shaun

[jonesy1275]

Firstly, my apologies for dragging an old thread back to the top.

I was staying at the camp site at Utah beach last week for the anniversary. I'm a '42 Jeep owner and went over to see how easy it would be to take the jeep over next year. I would take a walk on the beach nearly everyday in the hope of finding a few items especially empty casings as I have a print which is going to get framed and I wanted to incorporate the relics. Unfortunately, I didn't spot a single thing apart from a few random bits of rusting metal which didn't resemble anything.

I even did a few bicycle trips around the back roads around St. Marie du Mont (such a lovely place) where numerous fields had been plowed with young crops growing. I was very tempted just walk to the side of the plowed field to see if I could spot anything but I didn't want to get into trouble.

I'll no doubt do the same again next June but is there any useful tips that people can give me or is it a case of knowing where to look and use the Mk1 eyeball?

Neil.

[harry211]

I found that when looking on the beach, best to go when the tide is fairly low and look in areas where there are natural rocks sticking out of the sand, below high tide mark. I would guess that these tend to act as natural traps for any items that are washed in and out with the tides. My most productive area was down a turning off the d421 La Grande Dune, about half a mile or so from the museum at Utah. If you were coming from the D913 rue de la Liberte with the museum directly ahead of you, turn left down the D421 La Grande Dune. after about half a mile you reach the junction with the D67. On the right is a tarmac road, with a bunker on your right, leading to the beach. if you go down there, about 50 yards straight out, there are a couple of areas of rocks where I found numerous shell casings and bullets, plus loads of scrap from the ships broken up on the beach.

The bigger bits have a lot of concretion on them as they are being washed up from deeper water. Last time I was there a local (former french army) had found a Sherman tank shell and this guy was happily using a hammer to knock this concretion off to reveal the object hidden beneath....I have to say that I moved away when I realised what he was bashing with his hammer but he was an ex EOD guy so hopefully he knew what he was doing! He had a few cheerful stories about unexploded ordnance, one particularly choice one about a phosperous grenade and an unsuspecting tourist relic hunter. Pays to be careful and if you are not sure what it is, leave it alone and certainly don't hit it with a hammer. I am happy to collect small calibre ammo, even if "unfired" but am very wary of other stuff..

hope that helps and good luck next time you are there.

[sebfrench76]

Absolutely no sarcasm in my reply,be sure of that.
Do you think that me,Frenchfrog,could easily and freely dig on a former Raf or Usaaf landing site in the UK?